Gear Heads | Which Vacuum Sealers Seal the Deal?

Byamazingfoodstv


Have you ever frozen ground meat or berries inside a zipper-lock bag and found them covered in ice crystals only a week later? We have. Vacuum sealers can prevent that disappointment.

Buy our winning vacuum sealer:
Read the full review:

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47 Comments

  1. Most of the people who buy these machines end up giving them away. I see them at our local charity shops for less the $10. I got mine for $6.99 and mainly use it with mason jar vacuum sealer attachments.

  5. I have a food saver and it works great. It has a big space behind the sealer to hold rolls of the plastic 'bags'. that makes it not quite small. It is very easy to use and to use the accessories to seal in mason jar lids for nice storage in jars. I would recommend it. It is also automatic, provided you hold tight and sort of stretch out the bag top as you slide it into the sealer. The machine comes on and shuts off when the sealing is done, all by itself. You can select between, wet or dry products to seal.

  7. well you have to suck as much air out as possible when using zip lock bags. Your bags have a bunch of air in them. Thats lazy, nobody should just chuck a piece of meat in a ziplock and be done with it. lol. You can just pinch the bag in the middle and SUCK.

  14. I bought their winner. The nesco. It takes foreverrrrrr to finish sealing. 9Mississippi seconds on that timer each and every time it's used. So If you have more than one item to seal, get ready to fill your afternoon with a chore. ALSO: "What they don't mention." The system, do to its design, only seals the bag if the edge of the bag is properly inserted to the interior of the machine. As you know the rolls are not on the cheap side and per bag or cut piece if your using the rolls, you lose an entire "11/2 with every vacuum sealed product. That's quite a bit of plastic wasted with every use. I would not buy this again. I actually hate using it for that reason alone. But if you need another one, clean up, especially when doing stocks or marinates, none of the machines parts come out for cleaning. Gets a little messy.

  16. I bought the original Food Saver back in the '80s. I bought the ball jar accessories to go with it. This lasted me almost 30 years before I had to replace it. I roasted a turkey soon after buying my Tilia FoodSaver and I vacuumed sealed a breast. That breast went with me from place to place until in the mid '2000s I finally opened it and ate it. It tasted the same as the day I put it in the vacuum bag. I still use the Food saver, and seldom use the ball jars as they broke a little too often for me even though I handled them properly. I get an off-brand bag now from Walmart that works very well and it's about $20 for 250-quart bags and I buy used machines at resale shops.

  19. I got the Nesco machine based on these recommendations and even when used correctly and double sealed, some of the seals failed both in the refrigerator and freezer. Would not recommend.

  22. wondering how long the Nesco lasts before wearing out and if you can get replacement parts for it. my foodsavers wear out in about 2 years with light use . also wondering how much the Weston weighs because I know you can get replacement parts, but i can only pick up about 7 lbs at a go. can you help, please? i see this is 2 yrs old and that's about when my last food saver died. so am looking again now.

  23. Hi before even seeing your vid, I had the Nesco in my cart. The only thing that is stopping me is that there is no hose attachment. Do you have any recommendations for a hose for this unit and also containers to go with the hose? Thanks so much!!!!

  26. You need a Chamber vacuum machine or you are wasting your time and money to the extreme……… Check ou weird chinese machines often lable dz-260c for example………. look for dz- whatever…… Also look for broken down machines on facebook or whatever…….. I found a vmc35 which is webstaurants $2000 for free!!!!!! The pump was seized up due to never changing the oil……… Took apart the pump easily and cleaned out all the rust polished it out. Works like a dream. 2 16 inch seal bars………. Chamber machines are much simpler than they appear.

  28. One important thing to note: The defrost cycle in your frost-free refrigerator is the villian in freezer burn.☹️
    Chest freezers don't have this problem.
    I have frozen foods in my chest freezer that are well over a year old and have no freezer burn.🤗
    That said, I LOVE my Nesco, especially the double seal option. 🥰

  29. I don’t have a sealer so I came up with my own way. I put my item in a freezer bag and close it all the way except for a tiny end where I put a straw in. I suck out the air through the straw and pull the straw out as I push down the seal. It’s not as great as a machine but it surprisingly does pull out a lot of air. If it’s something in powder form I put it in a brown paper bag first.

  37. Why wouldn't you do Foodsaver? They are everywhere. I got mine and just want to say, it works well, takes a while for each job….not as quick as I would like. I did 15 bags of kale and it took a couple of hours. The instructions are unclear. They should have a close up instruction on how to set the bag so I'm constantly having to wait and then start over sometimes 3 times on one bag. I still don't know what I am doing wrong. Most of the time I get it right but no clue what the subtle difference is that causes the problem. :-/ Also it is awkward to open and close. There is no handle. It is super light weight which is a plus for some people…the issue I have is when your trying to open it, it lifts the whole machine. Its just not a smooth process. All in all though, I'm pretty happy with it.

  43. Is the Nesco vacuum sealer available in Europe? I know it's called Pro-Line in Australia but I could not find any information on its availability here in Europe.

    UPD: It's called Maxxo.

  44. I don't think that the ice crystals on the exterior of the food are doing much of the cell puncturing. Frozen foods becoming mushy has to do with the size of the ice crystals that form, which is related to the speed at which the thing freezes. Faster freeze, smaller ice crystals, less mushy. Hence why flash frozen foods are not mushy. Does vacuum sealing affect the rate food freezes?

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